National Book Festival — 24-Sept-2016

Love this annual event. Last year the First Family was there. The Library of Congress blog link:
http://blogs.loc.gov/national-book-festival/2016/05/2016-national-book-festival-poster-takes-viewers-on-journey-to-the-unknown/?loclr=twloc

Happy PI Day — 🍰

Stanczyk,

I am rounding up from last year to 3.1416:
https://mikeeliasz.wordpress.com/2015/03/14/good-morning-its-pi-day-3-14-15-92653-or-3-141592653-for-short/PI DAY

Happy PI DAY 2016

An App from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld — #iOS # STEM

 

Donald Rumsfeld in WSJ

 

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iOS App (in Apple App Store)

Let me shoot down your thoughts  quickly… no it was not a 1st-person-shooter like DOOM, nor an arcade like Missile-Defense game either. It was a card game; No it was not WAR (just stop it)!

It is a solitaire like card game invented by none other than British Prime Minister (WWII), Winston Churchill!

 

Proceeds (a portion) go to charities for UK & USA veterans. This is no simple solitaire.

So wimps need not download. The cost is free, but there are  In-App purchases, including, the cost of $4.99 if you want to get rid of ads and have free-play.

Good Morning, It’s PI Day – 3.14.15 9:26:53 (or #3.141592653 for short)

To the #STEM worker geek in me it is a most auspicious time. Stanczyk wishes to note that it is PI day:

3/14/15  9:26:53 (or perhaps you prefer 3.141592653 for short). I know this is irrational. PI is irrational too. An irrational number that  cannot be expressed exactly as a ratio of two numbers in a fraction.  Try with these fractions: 22/7,      333/106,     355/113,      52163/16604,      103993/33102, and      245850922/78256779

Last year (2014) a guy spent 208 days computing PI to 13,300,000,000,000 digits and then a little over a week to verify its correctness.

Take a circle, any circle. Measure its circumference and its diameter. Now divide the circumference length by the diameter. What do you get? This precise moment!  3/14/15 9:26:53 .   This moment will not occur again for another twelve hours (if you use a twelve hour clock) and then not again for another hundred years. It should have been known 26 centuries BC (when they built the great pyramid) and now its the 21 more times, so this precise moment has occured no more than 47 times since PI ‘s 1st known use.

Happy PI day and Happy Birthday Einstein too!

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Gotta Go — #JimHarbaughCalling — #Meme #Monday

Zach Gentry

I read something said by the 6’7″ Quarterback from New Mexico and UM commitment (flipped from Texas), Zach Gentry who was so psyched when he received a very special phone call.

 

“When Harbaugh is calling, you’re excited”, was what the QB Gentry said that is going around sports writers laptops these days.

 

So Stanczyk, immediately thought, “There’s a meme here!” SO … what I want my friends to do is when you end an email or a Facebook or Twitter or even a blog post, write …  ‘Gotta Go #JimHarbaughCalling’ — even if you are writing/emailing President Obama!!!

 

——- Gotta Go #JimHarbaughCalling  📱 ][v][   #GoBlue ——-

 

2014 World Chess Championship — Magnus Carlsen Wins, Two-Peat

The Offical website – http://www.sochi2014.fide.com/

Round 1 Was an exciting ebb and flow back and forth between Carlsen (black) and Anand (white) which wound down to a DRAW. http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/8393-wccm-round-1-draw.html

The moves with analysis can be found here …

http://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2014-wcc/01-Anand_Viswanathan-Carlsen_Magnus

Round 2 is today: 9th-November-2014 in five minutes ! Live Analysis is here.

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Cumulative Results:

 

Prior Blog:

https://mikeeliasz.wordpress.com/2014/06/17/2014-mens-chess-championship-tournament-fide-chooses-sochi/

Genealogy Roadshow — Philadelphia … #Genealogy , #Media . #TV

Stanczyk enjoys PBS and Genealogy. PBS has the excellent series Antique Roadshow so why not a Genealogy Roadshow? This is another fine genealogical series that complements the excellent work by Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr (Finding Your Roots).

Well the PBS crew, featuring  genealogists Kenyatta D. Berry, Joshua Taylor and Mary Tedesco are coming to Philadelphia, October 25th and 26th to film. This will be broadcast during the winter season coming up.

You can attend this event too. The details are on the Genealogy Roadshow website .

For those unfamiliar with Philadelphia genealogy, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP). will be featured. Many of the founding families have their genealogies recorded in book-form in a lovely room chock full of leather bound books of family histories.

#GenealogyPBS

Finding Your Roots — #Genealogy , #TV

Finding Your Roots by Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr.  returns to PBS tonight. The first episode features:

• Stephen King
• Gloria Reuben
• Courtney B. Vance

What’s their connection? Tune in tonight on PBS.

 

— A Stanczyk favorite

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George Timothy Clooney, Amal Ramzi Alamuddin — Marriage License — #Genealogy, #Celebrity

Londoner Alamuddin is marrying George Clooney in Italy (It has been reported as in/near Venice). Didn’t I see this in a George Clooney movie before?

Ah, yes — in Intolerable Cruelty. Although this time miss Alamuddin is the lawyer and George is the divorcee.

Although if you are one of George’s cast-offs, this may be intolerable cruelty to you:

Sarah Larson, Krista Allen,  Lisa Snowdon,  Celine Belitran, Karen Duffy, Kelly Preston,  Talia Balsam [ex-wife].  [list is here, with photos]. George is the nephew of Rosemary Clooney.

 

♥ This jester wishes the happy couple well and all the happiness the world has to offer !

 

Celebrity Genealogy.

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#Book #Review — The Serpent Of Venice by Christopher Moore

The Serpent Of Venice  by Christopher Moore —

contact:  Christopher Moore .

Stanczyk is  a bibliophile, possibly even a bibliophage. Being a jester for three kings gives me an especial fondness for authors/stories that have a jester/fool as one of the characters. So Stanczyk has a special fondness for William Shakespeare. Imagine how this jester was jolted to find a story mashed-up from Shakespeare with a jester … wait-a-minute  … who has a monkey  … named Jeff? Oh rapture, huzzah! How did I miss the fact that Christopher Moore had these characters in a prior novel  … Fool? Note to self go back and buy Fool !

I had only just finished the first chapter when I realized this story was a mash-up.  It appeared to me to be a mash-up of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice (comedy) and Othello (tragedy) and Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado (mystery). I was lured by the clever riff upon the Merchant of Venice title and naïvely assumed this would be a take off of that story. But I got more, much more than even I had bargained for and a monkey named Jeff to boot.

I like to examine a book like some kind of genealogy document. What is its structure? Is there anything unusual or unexpected? How many pages/chapters? So after I read three chapters, I decided to do this kind of examination. I recommend you read the first three chapters too before you do this examination. I saw an afterword. It was by the author and he gives his deconstruction of his novel — most interesting! But it can be a bit of a spoiler. Still I did read the Afterword before I read the last chapter  … I just could not help myself. I already decided to invest myself in the book and was uproariously entertained so far. Having the author give insight, also added to my wanting to complete the book, but I did appreciate some of the inside “skinny” he gives, so I can ensure I get all that Mr. Moore dishes up.

I laughed at his wit. Its right there in the preface (called The Stage and after  the Cast [Dramatis Personae] ). So even before the story begins, the humor has already set in. So I was surprised at his droll wit — not that he had it. Its just that I had Mr. Moore pegged in my mind as a Terry Pratchett. Indeed, I assumed he was some kind of Londoner. So I was surprised when I read his Wikipedia page that he was born in Toledo, Ohio. He writes the dialogue with such obvious British humor and dialect that I had assumed British, not someone born where many of my ancestors had settled, land of the algae bloomed water supply (that has not, so far, caught fire as Lake Erie has been known to do).

The surprise character (at least I think she/it will be a surprise since I was given an inkling in the Afterword which I read beforehand) and its introduction into the storyline called to mind for me, a bit of Beowulf. Especially since this story was already known by me (before the Afterword) to be a mash-up, so perhaps I was now hunting for mash in this uplifting and funny story. So many of the characters are very likeable that I do not know who to cheer for and who to jeer for. What a delightful diversion.

Its a novel in a guise of a play. Hence, the Cast and the Stage. But there is also a Chorus (like some kind of Greek play) and the Chorus is a character too! The book is so clever, this jester decided to Follow @TheAuthorGuy on Twitter.

Stanczyk recommends this book to all who like a good story infused with humor ala Pratchett. Its absurdist proportions appeal to my Slavic soul. The meta joke that an American can write the British dialect with such humor and panache will appeal to Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams fans.  Do not wait for this book to become available as an e-book on your library’s e-book facility, the line is too long. Go directly to your local library (or bookstore) and get the physical copy — much quicker than waiting for the Overdrive download to become available. I guess most people are afraid to enter the physical world and reticent to  leave their Internet bus stop. Excuse me, I will have to go to Marseilles now.

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World Cup 2014 – Envisaged Through 2 Popes – #Soccer #Futbol

In about three hours the World Cup, 2014 edition championship game will commence. Each team is represented by a Pope or a Pope Emeritus. So you know this is going to be religious battle for both teams … and soccer fans everywhere.

God’s Will !

This jester has served a few kings and if I were pressured to prognosticate the outcome beforehand. I would have to go with Pope Francis and pick Argentina. You don’t Mess With Messi!

What is your pick?

Who Do You Think You Are – UK? #UK, #Genealogy

Who are the UK celebs of, “Who Do You Think You Are“?  Stanczyk does not watch the UK TV,  but this blog is #Global. But, I would watch the episode on Twiggy .

Why not bring some WDYTYA episodes from overseas back to the USA?

The details are at: http://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.comUK .

 

UK Stars:

Mary Berry,   Brian Blessed,   Billy Connolly,   Brendan O’Carroll,

Martin Shaw,   Sheridan Smith,   Twiggy,   Julie Walters,   Reggie Yates,  Tamzin Outhwaite

2014 Mens Chess Championship Tournament – FIDE Chooses Sochi

FIDE Tournament Host Selection

Perhaps you had a bad case of triskaidekaphobia  and missed last Friday’s announcement that the Men’s 2014 Chess Championship will be held in Sochi this November. The re-match between Magnus Carlsen & Viswanathan Anand will be hosted in Sochi.

The agreement between Putin and Kirsan Ilyumzhinov (FIDE President) will perhaps salvage Sochi’s reputation after all of the Olympic insults about it being less than suitable, unfinished site. This tournament will also be juxtaposed against the political climate since Russia annexed Crimea after Sochi Olympics.

The chess tournament  is also going to be challenged by Russian finances, as the Bloomberg article indicates that Russia needs to add an extra  $58 Billion to ease their bank system’s funding shortage putting  at least one bank:

Sberbank is between Scylla and Charybdis  

— an analyst at BCS Financial Group

Toss in a former chess champion, Russian Activist, Garry Kasparov (Га́рри Ки́мович Каспа́ров) and this tournament has all the making of another drama that could blow up in the face of FIDE and/or Putin. Stanczyk loves Slavic dramas!

Vladimir Putin and Kirsan Ilyumzhinov (FIDE)

What Was I Thinking ? 2013 A Look Back … — #2013, #Muse, #Review

Stanczyk is of the age when I remember reading Art Buchwald ‘s Pulitzer Prize winning commentary columns. I was particularly fond of his annual columns that repeated every year (like his Thanksgiving column where Miles Standish became the more French/metric Kilometres Deboutish) — so today’s blog is an attempt to start an annual tradition of a look back … 2013.

Now how to recall my life and thoughts in 2013? How do I elaborate upon my thoughts / muses ?

Should  I summarize my blog posts? Recall major events? Highlight genealogical news? No! I had a brainstorm. I would review my year through TWITTER tweets; To be precise — just those tweets that I FAVORITED. Kind of a highlight of my best 140 characters in my twitter stream in 2013.

Why? Because I now want to propose that you my gentle-readers, also embark on this social experiment right along with me in 2014. This year I had no forethought. But next year, I want to capture the most compelling news stories or fascinating thoughts in science, religion, books, genealogy, etc.

Why FAVORITES? To limit the volume by sifting through the twitter stream. So I propose we use Twitter’s Favorite (star) and/or the tag:  #2014Review  to isolate just those tweets that we deem most worthy of saving/repeating  at the end of the year.

Why you too? Because it will make a fascinating social study for some scientist somewhere to study Cloud-Think. Or possibly years from now some Historian plowing through the Library of Congress who collects all of our tweets will want to study the history of our thought, our collective brain power.  What were they thinking?  Well future historians … here is what was on our minds.

Back to my 2013 Year in Review. I was stunned by the volume of tweets that I “Favorited“. I guess I never thought about it before. I had been using my “Favorites” to be my twitter stream book-marks so I could recall something later on. Well a quick scan told me that I favorited responses from followers, or my wife. I also seemed to be obsessed with the University of Michigan (#GoBlue). I also had a slight penchant for clever humor (that being humor that struck my funny bone) too. Scan my two PDF documents, perhaps you will find an interesting tweet that you had missed in 2013. You may even find a new Twitter account that you want to follow ( Stanczyk assumes you already follow @Stanczyk_   … correct?  If not, then do not let 2013 end without following my twitter stream.

I  created two PDF documents of the Tweet Favorites:  JAN-AUG (1.8MB size),    SEP-DEC (448K size)

Summary:

JAN – 100 tiny swarming robots @ Harvard,   iPhone 5s leaked images (arrives in Fall), French Court orders Twitter to release racist / Anti-Semitic users
FEB – PopSci – software that unveils the evolution of words, Pope Benedykt resigns (and the other 4 popes who resigned),
MAR – Gender Bias in US Visas, Ancestry.com Tweet to fix a bug (and they did!), OpenStack – Cloud Scalability
APR – Boston Marathon Bombing (Tsarnaew Saga), Louisville vs Michigan in Mens Basketball Final,
MAY – Oldest Known Torah Found, Genealogy Roadshow & UM 2013 Football Schedule Annonced
JUN – Patent Trolls  &  Turnip Truck (must have been a slow month)
JUL – The Internet Minute Infographic, Maurice Sendak‘s 1971 Yale Course, Forbes tweeted best companies for #STEM workers
AUG – Irish Poet, Translator Seamus Heaney died.; Oxford added to English language (Selfie). @MrMrs_ES was conceived.
SEP – All Tolstoy‘s works online, DISRUPTION in Management Consulting?,   Diana Nyad swims Cuba to USA
OCT – Tea Party Shutdown of government [Carrot Tree Kitchen defies shutdown]; Amazon to create 6,000 jobs in Poland;   14th Amendment – Shutdown Solution? Lincoln Quote on coffee/tea [humor]
NOV – “Thanksgivukkah“, Pope Francis revives/revitalizes chief-alms giver, Kepler telescope found 833 exo-planets before it failed,
DEC – Ukraine unrest over EU treaty delay, Foxconn to build plant in Pennsylvania, UM vs Kansas in BWWB on Dec 25

It looks like I did not FAVORITE a few things:

1. Mandela died
2. Prince George was born and subsequently baptised [very big in this blog]
3. Pope Francis is inaugurated March 19th  [Argentinean Cardinal]
4. Edward Snowden -release NSA data [June 2013]
5. US Government restarted
6. US Stock Market Highs
7. Higgs Boson Discovery confirmed / Peter Higgs gets Nobel Prize

Most were in blogs or Facebook or in Twitter Tweets – just not favorited. So it is with this new found self assessment that I enter into 2014 and I resolve to record my FAVORITEs (and/or use #2014Review) to attempt to capture the most important events throughout 2014. Oh, I will undoubtably use it for bookmarks and humor or so I can find UM Football Schedule too.  But I want to make a concerted effort to record current events for future historians from my eyes. How about you? Who is with me in this, Cloud-Think meme and will FAVORITE their tweets (or tag them #2014Review)?

Happy Holidays and a Happy Healthy & Prosperous New Year to you,  my readers!

Thank you for making 2013 the most-read year so far for this blog — there were over 21,000 reads in 2013 alone!

NCAA Football 2013 — Post Week 2 #BigTen, #B1G

So far the college football season has been great:  Clemson-Georgia, Georgia-SC, Michigan-Notre Dame, Florida-Miami, Texas-BYU, plus a few FBS teams beat FCS teams. Its early but how are things shaping up relative to inter-conference play ?

So far the Big 10 (which as twelve teams in contrast to the Big 12 which has ten teams — but ignore the names).

Big 10:   only three losses

ACC:      only five losses, beat the SEC in two head-to-head, two ACC-on-ACC, so three losses really

PAC 12:  only four losses, one of which was PAC12-on-PAC12, so lets call it three losses

SEC:       only six losses, two of which were SEC-on-SEC contests so lets call it four losses

Big 12:   only five losses, one of which was BIG12-on-BIG12 so really four losses

—

So Big 10,  ACC,  and PAC 12 are the leaders so far in inter-conference play. Who are soaking up the losses? American Athletic (9 losses, really 8),  Mid American (15, really 14), Conference USA (16, really 15), and the Independents (including Notre Dame) with only six teams have seven losses.

So it is this jester’s opinion that the National polls are skewed to the SEC (which to be fair has won the National Title so many years in a row). None the less, the rankings need to be re-balanced upon this season’s truth not on last season’s results.

Next Week …

No. 1 Alabama vs No. 7 Texas A&M  — Must see Game

No. 18 UCLA     vs No. 22 Nebraska   — Very Compelling Game

Tennessee at No. 2 Oregon

No. 3 Ohio State at California

No. 20 Washington at Illinois

Ole Miss at No. 15 Texas

No. 14 Notre Dame at Purdue

No. 21 Wisconsin at Arizona State

No. 8 Louisville at Kentucky

Boston College at No. 25 USC  — (only interesting ACC  inter-conference game)

A lot of Big 10 vs PAC 12 games this week.

 

My Picks …

Texas A&M over Alabama in an upset. TAMU is at home, but BAMA has had a week to prepare so it will be close. Alabama’s reign is over!

Nebraska over UCLA in a mild upset. Again Nebraska is at home and they have looked like a juggernaut. Nebraska has two games, but UCLA has two weeks to prepare. Stats slightly favor UCLA over Nebraska so I guess it is just the home field advantage I am hanging my hat on and Big Red having two games under its belt. Almost a toss-up.

Winners – Oregon,  Ohio State,  Notre Dame,  Wisconsin,  Louisville,

Toss Ups –  Washington/Illinois,  Ole Miss/Texas,   Boston College/USC

Wisconsin looks like Fielding Yost Point-A-Minute team, unscored upon so far. The biggest lock. It will be high scoring game (no defense played here unless it is by Wisconsin).

On the Toss-Ups take the home teams. USC must watch out for Boston College though.

Genealogy On TV … — #Genealogy, #PBS, #GenealogyRoadshow

It is now 1 month away from PBS’s Genealogy Roadshow. The series initial program airs Monday, September 23rd at 9:00pm EDT (1am GMT). The show is based upon the Irish TV version of the same name that PBS optioned and is produced by Krasnow Productions in the US.

Every Monday, 9/23 (Detroit, MI),  9/30 (Austin, TX), 10/7 (Nashville, TN), 10/14 (San Francisco, CA) PBS will air the one hour shows that will embody, “part detective story, part emotional journey, combining history and science to uncover fascinating stories of diverse Americans.”  The PBS show  uses  science and history to tell/verify genealogical stories with the most compelling finds shown on air in historic local settings. The four cities were chosen for their diversity of the American genealogical experience. The producers are breaking new ground, with a format that features an expert team of genealogists investigating ordinary people’s stories and then presenting them to a live roadshow  audience in an historical setting.

Stanczyk will be waiting … anxiously.

Koziolek Matolek 80 Years ! — #Polish, #Culture, #Pacanow

Happy Birthday  Matolek, sto lat. Koziolek Matolek (Matolek the Billy-goat) was born in 1933. You might say he put Pacanow “on the map”. You see Matolek wanted to go to Pacanow because he heard that you could get good (goat) shoes in Pacanow.

Now this charming character has always had a special place in Stanczyk’s heart, because my great-grandfather, Tomasz Leszczynski was a shoe-maker (szewc) / inn keeper. So perhaps Matolek would have bought his shoes from my great-grandfather. Did he ever find Pacanow? I do not know.

Koziolek Matolek (Matolek the Billy-goat) was the creation of  Kornel Makuszyński (story) and Marian Walentynowicz (art).

Well, it is now 80 years later and Pacanow is celebrating this cult-favorite May 31st – June 2 this year! Their program can be found here . Like Matolek, I too have been trying to get to Pacanow.

RootsTech 2013 … — #Genealogy, #RootsTech, #Technology

iGoogle as customized for Stanczyk

Today is the start of RootsTech 2013. So in honor of the conference I will blog today about  Genealogy, and Technology.

Last year Google announced it was getting rid of iGoogle and now this week it said it was getting rid of its RSS Reader (hence probably why they announced iGoogle was going away). So I have decided how I will replace these two tools in my portable genealogy toolbox. My Solution … the FlipBoard app.

FlipBoard

The screenshot above (at the top) shows a portion of my iGoogle (still available until July). As you can surmise, I used it as a newspaper dashboard for keeping me abreast of the genealogy news in my focus areas. You may have noticed it is quite TEXTUAL. As such, it lacks appeal and ease of scanability. This is where Flipboard app comes in.  Now Stanczyk was not using Google’s Reader … that is directly. I think iGoogle probably was a tool that used its own Reader (RSS feeds). It gave me the ability to have a genealogy dashboard (or portal as we used to say). Flipboard will however import your Google Reader. There are other alternatives like Pulse or even WordPress that can import your RSS subscriptions for you. But this jester likes FlipBoard.

As you see, Flipboard is visually appealing and easily, quickly scanable. What you may not realize that these Flipboard “blocks” are the same feeds I had in the iGoogle tool. However, now my Eastman Online Genealogy and my GenealogyBlog are visual. Notice I was able to also get my Ancestry Member Connect Activity feed too! So I have everything I had before in a kind of retro “Life Magazine” visually appealing way  updated for the Internet age ! I actually think of Flipboard as my Internet Magazine that is finely attuned to MY interests. But as you see, you can use it as your genealogy dashboard of what is going on currently in genealogy (or any topic you are interested in).

You may not have noticed in the Flipboard image, I have my own blog in the lower left corner. When you click on that “block” it takes to my “section”. Where my own blog posts are very attractively displayed in the Flipboard magazine style. Very nice!

Flipboard runs on your smartphone or your tablet. I really like how it looks on the tablet (iPad in my case). Seeing my blog in Flipboard changed my style of writing a blog. I wanted my blog posts to look good and be visually appealing in Flipboard. So now I take some extra measures to make sure it will  look good, but I have to admit that Flipboard does most of the work and it does make your blog look good.

Flipboard can take your Twitter feed, or Facebook or Blog or even a custom RSS Feed like my Ancestry Member Connect Activity. It even takes Flickr or LinkedIn or just about anything you may use in your social networking / media creation world.

So I am no longer sad that iGoogle or the underlying Google Reader are going away. I have evolved and I am using Flipboard and I am much happier. I can keep tabs and I can keep informed and I am frequently entertained too. What a great app!

Hey add “Stanczyk Internet Muse” to your Flipboard. Enjoy RootsTech 2013 too!

Presidents Day — #2013

It is President’s Day on Monday. That got me to thinking about Washington and Lincoln. Stanczyk, has had an awful lot of mathematical training – the product of a degree from a School of Engineering. It is funny, the teachings that stick with you your whole life. One of the things that I learned that stuck with me was a little factoid from a Probability & Statistics course. I was taught that in a gathering of just of 19 people that the probability that two of them having the same day of birth (not the same year though) would be 50-50. That in any gathering of 19 people it would be a 50% chance of two people celebrating their birthday on the same day each year!

This being President’s Day weekend, I noted that we have had  44Presidents (only 43 different, since Grover Cleveland was the 22^nd and the 24^th President). So I asked myself did any two Presidents have the same day of  birth? Now if we ignore the Grover Cleveland issue, and we examine the dates of birth of all US Presidents, we do indeed find that two Presidents had the same day of birth. The day in calendar is November 2^nd. The two Presidents who share that day are: Warren G. Harding and James K Polk.

Now you might expect that since we have > 38 Presidents, that there should be two pairs of matches. But the odds are only 50-50. So we have just one matching pair of Presidents. There were a lot of near misses (off by one day). If your birth month is not September or June (each of which only had one President) then the odds are pretty good that you, my dear reader, share a birth day with one of the Presidents. I’d say better than 50-50. So click on the link and see for yourself.

Happy President’s Day!

What Is Your Social IQ ?

Blogger
Facebook
Flickr
Flipboard
FourSquare
Google+
iReddit
Klout
LinkedIn
Meetup
Pinterest
Skype
Stumble Upon
Tumblr
Twitter
Wordpress

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Match the App icon (on the left) to the App Name on  right.
2. Which 3 Apps are for writing blogs (micro-blogging does not count)?
3. How many Apps from the list have you ever used?

—

Answers:

1. 1 pt for each correct Apps matched with its name (answer page 7/28/2012)

2. Blogger, Tumblr, and WordPress [2 pts for each one you got]

3.  1-4  = 1 pt;   5-8 = 2 pts;    9-12 = 3 pts;   12+ = 4 pts

—

Perfect Score: 26:  You must be a social genius

17-25:  Highly Evolved

10-16: Socially Adept

5-9: Need to do some Googling

1-4: Internet Marooned

0: Luddite

Celsius 233* — A Bradbury Tale — #Humor, #Science, #Religion, #FreeSpeech

Dear Readers this neo-post-compassionate-conservative-apocalyptic-dystopian history is from the days of the year 2019. Contrary to the comical Internet Mayan conspiracy kooks, the world did not end in 2012 despite Mitt Romney being elected President of the USA and then re-elected leader of the entire English Speaking Free World in 2016 — an election that everyone now knows he purchased with his considerable undocumented wealth. We should have listened to  Vanity Fair back in 2012 — but there were just too few readers back then. Oh the misery we have endured since …

It has been a hard seven years under President Romney.  Because, of the influence of the Tea Party Evangelicals and Romney’s considerable undocumented wealth he became President.

Back on 4th July 2012, the World Science community discovered the Higgs Boson quantum particle  — the God Particle. This so enraged Romney, that the first thing that President Romney did was have Vain Capitalist LLC buy all the newspapers (especially the Murdoch Press & Hacking Software company) and leverage the hell out of them — supposedly to enhance his own considerable undocumented wealth. But that was just the ostensible reason.

They ended up bankrupting all of the press and media outlets — not hard to do in those days of the Great Recession and barely anybody reading at all and almost none at all in the South. So the newspapers and other media  went out of business and now there were only the bloggers and the Internet to keep data and information alive.

Then in 2017 when President Romney was re-elected in a very suspect election. He immediately moved to control the Internet and to ban blogging software. This precipitated World War III , which he financed with his considerable undocumented wealth while the European leaders were still so busy talking about their imaginary currency (I believe it was called, the Euro) the USA conquered the UK and then most of the European continent (except for Greece, Spain and Italy — which were non-profitable countries), Canada, New Zealand and Australia. That is why he is President of the English Speaking Free World. He is now trying to eradicate blogs and by so doing eliminate the “dangerous” bloggers too. Oddly that is how the USA finally got its first metric standard (Celsius) which it used to confuse the issue of Global Warming.

It has been historic this anti science and publication administration. First they denied the age of the Earth and its fossils, then they denied Evolution, then they denied Global Warming — even when half the US was baking like HELL back in 2012??? The last straw was the Higgs Boson, ironically the God Particle caused these religionists to pursue the pogrom against science and information.

There has been a long history of this anti knowledge movement. First the Catholics tried to censor scientists like Copernicus (who took his knowledge to the grave) and then Gallileo. By the time  Darwin had appeared, Protestants had joined in too. So by 2012, America had a breed of religionists called “Evangelicals” who were people who Evangelized against science and reading and such things calling them the Devil’s playground. They used to rewrite biblical stories to say that the Bible’s prophets were all about the profit and were against charity. I know this sounds incredible and even unbelievable to you future historians, but I swear it is all true. If you can find any Internet documents or archived newspapers (a physical piece of pages of paper with printed texts that contained information — completely devoid of any digital means) you may be able to read it for yourself — if anyone still does that in the future.

So for the sake of the future. I am asking my blog readers to memorize my blog posts. Just pick your favorites and commit them to memory. Maybe you can write them down on paper if your family has a history of dementia. At any rate, pass them down in your family. Read them at holidays.

All remaining bloggers that have not yet been silenced are calling for their readers to do this for their blogs too. We must be able to preserve knowledge through these information Dark Ages that we are entering.

God (or Nature as the scientists are wont to say) save our immortal souls!!!

—*a terrible homage to Ray Bradbury‘s Fahrenheit 451

Pączki Day – A Fat Tuesday Remembrance — #Polish, #Culture

Pączki Day – In the Detroit area suburbs, we always waited for Fat Tuesday to come around. Because, on the last day of Mardis Gras (Fat Tuesday) we would queue up in long lines — typically at an Oaza Bakery to buy our Pączki Donuts.

Now it has been over two decades since then and we do not have any Oaza Bakeries out here on the East Coast and there are few and far between Polish bakeries/delis of any kind around and none near where I live. I used to buy a few dozen Pączki Donuts and bring them into work to introduce the non-Poles to some Polish culture. Always a hit!

 

Tomorrow, Ash Wednesday,  is the beginning of the austere Lenten season. The forty day season of preparation celebrating the arrival of God’s Good News & Holy Spirit  into our midst that culminates in Easter. Alleluia !

 

I miss the Pączki Donuts. Fastnachts are just not the same. One year, I thought I would make Pączki Donuts for the family, so I gathered an authentic,  “Old Busia”, recipe and bought a fryer and made my dough for the Pączki.   I picked out my favorite fruit fillings and fried my little masterpieces and sprinkled the warm donuts with powdered sugar.  These were passable  substitutes for the beloved Polish culture that I had left behind in MI. For a few years I carried proudly my scar of an oil burn caused by one of my over zealous little Pączki helpers. The scar has long since disappeared, but the memory remains.

 

Have A Blessedly Happy Lenten Season Everyone!

An Open Letter to: Jim Delany (Big 10), John D. Swofford (ACC), Larry Scott (PAC 12)

To: Jim Delany (Big 10) John D. Swofford (ACC) Larry Scott (PAC 12)

An Open Letter to: Jim Delany (Big 10), John D. Swofford (ACC), Larry Scott (PAC 12)

12/6/2011

Re: BCS Poll

You should immediately quit the BCS. It is rigged against you and your three conferences. If you read my letter then you should see from my analysis, that the “computer polls” are inherently biased (and perhaps worse than the two human polls that make up the other 2/3 of the BCS rankings).

First off, I used the Human Polls (Harris Poll & USA Today/ESPN) as the normative index. If you say this ok then you can accept my analysis. If you reject it, then you should be pitting LSU against Oklahoma State in the BCS Championship Bowl Game, because that is what the Computer Polls would have made the result if there were no human polls as a part of the BCS Index.

My analysis clearly shows that the computer polls OVERWHELMINGLY favor the BIG12 and have a strong bias in favor of the SEC too. At the same time it is OVERWHELMINGLY rigged against the BIG 10 and strongly biased against the ACC and the PAC 12 conferences.

The analysis shows that the Big 10, ACC and the PAC 12 would have to overcome a huge bias by the computer polls via the Human Polls to have any chance to reach the BCS Championship Game. You should realize that by selecting the SEC every year to play in the BCS Championship Game, you keep the bias in the computer polls and it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy each and every year. That means the BIG Money will continue to flow unchecked into the SEC (and also to lesser degree to the BIG 12) as it is a “virtuous cycle” upwards for these two conferences who get the best recruits and booster money because they are ALWAYS in the BCS Championship Game.

Now that you have given in to the precedent of two teams from the same conference in the BCS Championship Game (should be a rule against this) you will see a heavy bias to that year after year, since that is all new recruits will see and the “virtuous cycle” will persist. Also, did you realize that the computer and the human polls will emphasize the next year’s polls based upon the previous year, via the pre-season polls?

The root cause you will see is that two computer polls in particular: Kenneth Massey & Jeff Sagarin strongly overemphasize Big 12 teams and SEC teams also have a strong positive bias, while at the same time, these two same computer polls also demonstrate an under-emphasis of the Big 10 and a strong negative bias against the ACC and PAC 12. The effect is what we have seen for the last few years and culminating in this years SEC-only Championship.

If you want to keep the BCS Polls, then you will need to do five things to improve them and their perception as fair:

1. Make a rule that the BCS Championship can NEVER have two teams from the same conference. This should be self evident.
2. Make the remaining computer polls submit their algorithms to an audit before the season starts and a week before/after the final BCS rankings \to ensure that these computer algorithms are “bias free” from human intervention and that the same results are achieved in the before/after of the final rankings (i.e no tampering and results are reproducible i.e. no randomness).
3. You must get rid of one or both of Kenneth Massey of Jeff Sagarin computer polls. The dual combination skews the biases in favor of BIG12/SEC and against the BIG10/ACC/PAC12. If you only get rid of one, then the initial removal should be Jeff Sagarin. The two computer polls show the same bias and are merely echoes of each other thus giving them an undue advantage over the other four computer polls. The Jeff Sagarin poll is merely MORE pronounced (in its biases) than the Kenneth Massey poll.
4. No 4 loss or 5 loss TEAM can ever be eligible for a BCS Bowl Game. You need this rule to prevent obvious bias from contaminating the system.
5. No 2 loss TEAM can play in the BCS Championship Bowl Game (substitute the next highest ranked team that does not violate rules 1 & 5).

Mind you the Anderson & Hester computer poll exhibits some bias too, but it at least it is not in COMPLETE lock step with the Kenneth Massey or Jeff Sagarin polls. Otherwise, please dismantle the BCS system and just have 4 super football conferences and take the conference champion from each and have these four teams play a semi-final and a final game to determine the national champion fairly. See the attached spreadsheet data, cut/pasted into the next page and do you your own analysis to validate my findings and see if you reach the same conclusion. Please pay special attention to TEXAS in the final rankings if you wish to be totally disgusted by the computer polls – there is no mathematics that can justify that conclusion by computers, unless there is a BIG12 bias. The computer polls would have made TEXAS, a 7-5 team, the 19th ranked team overall in the whole country and the two offending computer polls would have made TEXAS 13th in the country and eligible for a BCS at Large Bowl Game. Can you imagine? Only TEXAS and AUBURN (BIG12 & SEC) have 5 losses in the BCS Top 25. In fact there are no other 5 loss or any 4 loss teams!

Someone should commend the Richard Billingsley, Colley Matrix and Peter Wolfe computer polls for their ability to keep bias from skewing their rankings.

Anderson & Hester can and should do better in their computer algorithm.

2011					FINAL	BCS	POLL
		Human Polls	A/H	RB	CM	KM	JS	PW	Comp   Polls	Comp     Diff	Diff Summ
LSU	SEC	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0
BAMA	SEC	2	-1	-1	-1	-1	0	0	3	-1	-4
OKLA St	B12	3	1	1	1	1	0	0	2	1	4
Stanford	P12	4	0	0	-1	-4	-6	-3	5	-1	-14
Oregon	P12	5	-7	0	-3	-5	-4	-1	8	-3	-20
Arkansas	SEC	6	-1	-2	-6	1	2	2	5	1	-4
Boise St	MWC	7	-2	1	0	-6	-6	-1	9	-2	-14
Kans. St	B12	8	3	1	4	4	3	3	4	4	18
SCaro	SEC	9	-1	1	-2	0	1	0	10	-1	-1
Wisc	B10	10	-5	0	-5	-6	-9	-2	14	4	-27
VaTech	ACC	11	-2	0	-2	-3	-10	-6	13	2	-23
Baylor	B12	12	1	2	-5	2	6	5	11	-1	11
UMich	B10	13	2	-3	4	-6	-9	-5	15	2	-17
OKLA	B12	14	8	5	8	7	8	4	7	-7	40
Clemson	ACC	15	-4	0	-3	-5	-2	2	16	1	-12
Georgia	SEC	16	2	-4	0	5	5	2	12	-4	10
Mich St.	B10	17	-3	4	-4	-7	-7	-5	21	4	-22
TCU	MWC	18	-4	4	-1	-5	0	3	17	-1	-3
Houston	CUSA	19	3	0	5	-2	-6	0	18	-1	0
Nebraska	B10	20	3	2	3	-5	-3	0	19	-1	0
So. Miss	CUSA	21	25	-1	-1	25	25	5	24	3	78
Penn St.	B10	22	1	1	2	25	25	-1	23	1	53
West VA	Beast	23	25	25	-1	25	25	25	25	2	124
Texas	B12	24	7	25	2	11	11	0	19	-5	56
Auburn	SEC	25	0	1	25	8	11	4	21	-4	49
			-7	11	-8	-35	-37	-2		-17	-78
Skew By	Conference
	ACC		-6	0	-5	-8	-12	-4			-35
	B10		-2	4	0	-24	-28	-13			-63
	B12		20	7	10	25	28	12			102
	Beast		na	na	-1	na	na	na			-1
	CUSA		3	-1	4	-2	-6	5			3
	MWC		-6	5	-1	-11	-6	2			-17
	PAC12		-7	0	-4	-9	-10	-4			-34
	SEC		-1	-5	-9	13	19	8			25

Source: 12/5/2011 Philadelphia Inquirer Final BCS Standings

The bottom five teams were unranked in one or more computer polls making their data unfit for some of the analyses – these were not used in the bottom analysis of Skew By Conference.

College Football Is Back !!!

Tuff Wolverine

Well a little diversion from my more erudite pursuits…

Somehow Stanczyk feels a case of Football Interruptus. What a crazy week!  Baylor knocks off TCU — good for the Bears. Utah St vs Auburn provided late hysterics to make for an interesting game. UM and ND interrupted by Climate Change. A Win for Big Blue and the Blues for the Irish. But next week the College World arrives in Ann Arbor. What ? “College Game Day” comes to Ann Arbor for the Throwback Jersey Game – “UNDER THE LIGHTS” of:   MICHIGAN vs NOTRE DAME .

LSU is able to set aside the distractions and in the biggest game of the week, stuffs Oregon in Arlington, TX in a first week Top-5 match-up where the lower rated team wins! Gotta love that Les Miles (LSU Coach).  Georgia and UCLA fizzle — pity Stanczyk likes Richt & Neuheisel . Minnesota played well against USC. All-in-all, I think the Pac-12 looked bad. The Big10 (uh 12) looked pretty good (IND excepted) — Welcome Big RED (Nebraska in the BIG10 AWESOME).

#Polish #Genealogy #Blog – Stanczyk Thanks His Visitors …

Visitors Last 60 Days - Cumulative

About two months ago, on the 4th of July, Stanczyk decided to put a counter on the blog/website to see who you, my gentle readers are. Thank you for coming and for your emails — please keep them coming.

Since the blog is written in English, with a smattering of Polish, or Russian or even Latin, I suspected the English speaking world (US, CA, GB, AU) would be the majority. As you can see by the flags of the world and the numbers besides the flags,  representing yourselves, that is true.

Since much of the subject matter is Polish/Slavic genealogy based, then I was not surprised to find Poland my second largest country of interested viewers — Dziękuję bardzo . Indeed my thanks to all of the Central/Eastern Europeans from: PL, DE, RU, CZ, AT, UA, BY, LT and even HR — you know who you are.

I am pleased with Canada since many Polish genealogists or genealogists in general  who trace the Polonian diaspora came through Canada, as was the case in some of Stanczyk’s family tree. I am pleasantly surprised by the Nordic nations (SE, NO, DK), but of course there was much intermingling with the Polish peoples in a time long ago, including Mieszko I ‘s grandson Canute (aka Cnut the Great) who went on to great influence in the Nordic countries and finally in the United Kingdom itself.

As for the rest of the world, I am glad you came too. I thank you for your polite inquisitiveness.

I would urge all interested parties who blog, to use the Flag Counter — why not? I think the experiment was a success. I now know I am reaching my target audience (and a bit more besides) globally.

You can find the flag on the Map pages or the Dziennik Polski (Detroit, MI) pages. Click on the flags and it will take you the Flags Counter website where you can get your own.

Thanks for being a part of my experiment. For my part, I think I will keep it going to see how many Flags of the world I can collect or how many US states (32 so far) or Canadian provinces (5) I can wrangle in.

 

Your Host,

–Stanczyk

And the Loser of the 2012 Mens Chess Championship Is …

Stanczyk knows exactly how the guy on the left feels. The chess clock is still ticking, the flag has dropped … a while a go …  and yet FIDE plays on. No host has been selected (or has one). There have been announcements/press releases, then retractions.

Forget going to the Russian Chess Federation (English language web page): http://russiachess.org/eng/ .  The English version is four years out of date – I hope Gary Kasparov does well. Switching to the Russian language was no help either — no mention of the hosting one way or another. But it was more current.

The PakChess.org website announced Moscow won the right to host and posted a transcription of the FIDE announcement. http://pakchess.org/hot-stories/fide-awards-world-championship-match-to-moscow

This Chess Blog website had the actual FIDE press release posted naming Moscow as the winning bid to host the 2012 Men’s Championship. (see http://chess.business-news-blog.eu/2011/breaking-news-wc-to-be-held-in-moscow-not-chennai/ )

Chess Vibes – http://www.chessvibes.com/  said the FIDE Press Release awarding the torunament to Moscow (Russian Chess Federation) was released and then FIDE issued a subsequent announcement to say their previous announcement was not announced.

FIDE.com website is mum. Don’t you just love the intrigue? I hope the chess tournament is as exciting, although one hopes it will be better managed. It occurs to Stanczyk that FIDE had said about two weeks ago that August 10th is the latest deadline, so they still have HOURS to go,  so  why be hasty — they (FIDE) have only missed a few time trials this year in the awarding of the Host site. Time may very well tell — but you would never know by this year.

I say let Moscow and Chenai do rock-scissors-paper in the best two out of three with the highest rated rock-scissors-paper players from  each country to decide. Anything to get this debacle over.

Oh, I forgot, you came here to my blog to see who the big loser was. It was FIDE!

#Poland #Chess – Krakow to Host FIDE General Assembly & Mikhail Gorbachev to Speak

Where's the Details?

The World Chess Federation announced yesterday that Mikhail Gorbachev will speak at the upcoming FIDE General Assembly in Krakow, Poland. Full Story: http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/5434-fide-president-met-with-mikhail-gorbachev.html . Now that is interesting!

OK, here is Stanczyk’s beef ! Where are the details? Missing from the announcement is the date of the Assembly or further details of the location. Let’s not ignore the elephant in the room — No 2012 announcement for the Men’s 2012 World Chess Championship has been announced.

Previously, I wrote about the delayed selection here . That was the second time the announcement had been missed. So tomorrow (31-July-2011) is the day. Do we have a 2012 Chess Championship or is FIDE still snoozing? Perhaps FIDE needs to recognize the world economy and soften their requirements for the host. My hope is either Poland or the USA will host the 2012 Championship.
Will FIDE actually make the announcement on Sunday? Is Gorbachev making this announcement tomorrow in Krakow, in the middle of summer — what no Holidays for management? The Chess Clock is ticking …  or will FIDE forfeit on time constraints?

Wojtek the World War II Army Bear – Polish Soldiers Mascot

Wojtek in his Edinburgh Zoo Cage

Many people are still Googling my Blog about Wojtek. I wrote an article about Wojtek being honored with a statue for his WWII heroics. Obviously this bear was much beloved.

Here is a link to a story from 1959 in Przekrój. 1959, nr 723 (15 II) : http://mbc.malopolska.pl/dlibra/doccontent?id=59278&dirids=1 .

The author knew Wojtek personally , tells the story of the famous bear who was the mascot of Polish soldiers (Anders Army) in Iran and Italy. He also ponders whether Wojtek after 13 years will return from Scotland to Poland.

–Stanczyk

Knock … Knock

Well, I did ask. Thank you Netizens of the World !  I see many flags. It has only been 11 days, so I am pleasantly surprised. Are those the Polish Enclaves? If Israel and Brazil checks-in then I will believe. Welcome one and all to my musings.

I even see Portugal. Is that because I wrote about your favorite son, Christopher Columbus (son of Wladyslaw III) or is the excellent Portuguese researcher, Manuel Rosa just checking in on Stanczyk? You can catch up on that story here . Or perhaps on his Polish father, Wladyslaw III .

2012 Mens Chess Championship Tournament – Host Selection Still Pending

FIDE Tournament Selection

 

It was supposed to be today that we found out where and when the 2012 Men’s Chess Championship between Anand &  Gelfand would occur. The process for selecting a host for this tournament has been extended another month until 31-July-2011.

The details can be found here: http://discusschess.com/bids-deadline-for-anand-gelfand-2012-extended.html . I just wanted to update my earlier article on this Chess Championship. Stanczyk thinks FIDE needs to be more flexible on their demands. I think they are snoozing on  the job and need to wake up and smell the coffee. I hope someone in the USA can pull together a bid, I’d love to see a Chess Championship in person!  OK, America its your move.

Royal Order of Jesters

The Jesterman’s Creed

Laugh and the glad world laughs with you,
Weep and the sad World will sigh!
Mirth is our Life’s true Elixir;
It shows you’re a “Regular Guy!”
There’s nothing so banishes worry,
nor puts such a big crimp in sin;
Nor smooths out the wrinkles of trouble,
Like a jolly old Jesterman’s grin!
It rolls off the years from your shoulders,
You’ll forget that you’ve grown to be men!
Your youth turns once again to embrace you,
For you’ve grown to be schoolboys again!
So, if you’ve got grouches, don’t bring ’em,
It’s your laugh and your joke that we need;
For Mirth is the Doctor of Trouble,
And Laughter the Jesterman’s Creed.

— author unknown (to Stanczyk)